Reflection of a Waning Monster
by bpfatcat
Summary: There is one moment, a brief encounter, a glimpse into the life of what could be. And in the final battle, all they can ask for is hope. Rated M for language.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N** This is the very late gift to Crossy70; as it's so late it'll be a two-shot! Hope you enjoy!  
 **Disclaimer;** Nothing belongs to me (cries)

 **Reflection Of a Waning Monster**

Windows. Floors. Walls.  
Broken. Stained. Bloodied.  
Shattered glass. Torn carpet. Cracked stone.

Shards tinted with red. Fabric seeping with red. Portraits violated with red.

And the innocent girl, devoured by red.

She wasn't there, not really. She couldn't be. This was Hogwarts, this was her home! So... Where was she? Wandering endlessly, she felt her trainers slip against the blood-soaked floor and crunch over the remains of what had been, for hundreds of years, windows and walls. Nose wrinkled against the metallic smell, she looked around her slowly; she had walked these halls so many times that she had arrived to a place she had, well, conflicted, memories of.

It was here that she had been taught by a man possessed by Lord Voldemort, a glorified actor who she had definitely not fancied, a werewolf who happened to be one of the most brilliant men she'd ever met, a Death Eater, a woman she had mentally scarred, and then... Well, another Death Eater. Supposedly.

Just a few minutes away from the chaos. A chance to be quiet. She sighed and leant against the entrance, thinking about her Potions Professor, when her brace, the door to the well-weathered Defence Against the Dark Arts Classroom, suddenly opened. She flew backwards, lying on her already sore back, and staring into a pair of eyes she'd been longing to see all night.

"I'm sorry, I thought you..." Remus began awkwardly. "I thought you might be..."  
"Another dead body?" She asked darkly, before sighing and laughing humourlessly. "Well not yet at least! Though I imagine we'll all be by the end of tonight."  
Remus knelt down to grasp her hand and pull her up, before grabbing her into a tight hug. "I'm so glad you're okay." He murmured.  
Hermione felt close to tears as she rested her head against his shoulder and allowed her body to lean against him. "I'm so glad too."  
They smiled sadly at one another, before Remus gave a half-hearted chuckle. "I would offer you some chocolate... It makes you feel better... But, considering the situation and, well, the fact I don't have any... Would you like to come inside?" Hermione blinked, looking at the arm that held the door open and the classroom inside, then back to the red hallway outside, and dashed in.

She jogged to her old desk, sniffling slightly; now was not the time for crying. "Are you..." She began awkwardly, not knowing how to finish her question.  
"Okay?" He supplemented, before giving the wry, humourless smile she knew all too well from Order meetings. "No, but then I suppose none of us are."  
"Unharmed?" She finished her question after a moments pause.  
He nodded slowly. "I guess so. Well, I've not been hit with a crucio just yet." His limp attempt at humour made her shake her head in grief. "I guess I'm one of the lucky ones." He murmured, before his head snapped up to meet her eyes once more. "Are you?"  
One corner of her mouth lifted in a grim representation of a smile. "Okay or unharmed?"  
"Both."  
She shrugged. "It doesn't matter really. I have a job to do; I have to help Harry. Whether I'm okay or not, whether I'm unharmed or not, whether I end up," She took a deep breath before continuing, "dead or not, it doesn't matter. Just as long as I help him. Just as long as we win."  
Remus considered her for a few long seconds before grasping one of her cold hands in one of his warm ones. "It does matter." He murmured. "To a lot of people. You're not just his sidekick; people care about you."

When she met his gaze he was surprised by the maturity in her eyes, a maturity of the kind he'd only seen once before; not in Dumbledore's eyes, not in Harry's, but in Sirius's. It was a maturity born of the worst kind of grief and loss and, more than that, the assurance that everything would forever be tainted with darkness. Happiness wouldn't be quite so happy. Humour would never be clean and pure. And innocence... Innocence was a childhood dream, lost to the shadows. She swallowed thickly. "If I don't help Harry, there won't be anyone left to care."

Sighing heavily, he rested on the desk next to her. "What have you lost, Hermione?"  
She blinked at him a few times, before a sweet crease in her eyebrows and a slight downturn in her mouth showed her confusion. "I don't understand."  
He pulled his eyes away from the darkness of her eyes and looked at the wall instead. "You've lost something, something that the others don't understand."  
She followed his lead and stared at the wall, where a grotesque picture she thought she remembered from Moste Potente Potions, depicted a man's own intestines strangling him. "Carrow needs a lesson in home decoration." She muttered, and was rewarded with a bark of genuine, surprised laughter from Remus, as he grabbed her hand again and squeezed reassuringly. "It should be your pictures on the walls, I always thought so." She murmured after some time.

"Huh?" He replied with, he noted scornfully, a considerable lack of intelligence.  
As if she had only just realised what she'd said, Hermione blushed scarlet. "Well, uh, it's just that, um, well... I mean Lockhart had, er, all these, uh, portraits and stuff and, well, I, hum, just think that it would, erm, be better if there were, heh, pictures of, you know, a nice guy." Hermione Granger, she thought bitterly, you are a bloody idiot; you are a blathering mess and just... Ugh!

Remus blinked once. Then twice. Then thrice. After about the tenth blink he cleared his throat and, in a voice that would ever be able to show the true gratitude he felt, quietly said, "I'm glad you think I'm a nice person Hermione."  
She threw a quick glance in his direction, before slumping slightly. "I know you are a good person." She left the desk and wandered over to the wall, to look at another portrait; this one was a harsh depiction of what she knew to be an inferus. "They're mindless, you know?" Her voice was almost a whisper. "They don't know, they have no concept of their life." She turned and faced him, tears shining in her bright eyes. "How awful must that be?" She asked softly. "To have no memory of a life you've lived?"  
He frowned at the sudden change of subject, and when he spoke, there was confusion in his voice. "It must be awful, yes."  
"Only a monster would do it."  
He noted her toneless voice and repeated in the same way. "I suppose so."

She sighed, her whole body seeming to collapse in on itself, before straightening her spine and, refusing to look at him, coolly said, "That's what I've lost." He made a confused sound and finally, her eyes met his, but they were cold. Much too cold. "I've lost my innocence. My humanity." She clarified.  
Exhaling heavily, he attempted a smile. "We've all had to do things we wouldn't like, this is a war after all and we-"  
Shaking her head, she cut across him. "You don't understand. No-one understands. I couldn't even tell anyone other than Harry and Ron and they just. Don't. Get it."  
"Get what?" He asked in confusion.

Her chilly exterior cracked slightly, and a sole tear ran down her cheek. "I'm a monster." She whispered, and when he moved to comfort her she shied away in fear. "No!" She yelled, when he opened his mouth to speak. "You don't get it Remus! I am a monster!"  
"No," He whispered, moving to comfort her even as she backed into a corner, "you're not a monster. Whatever's happened, whatever you've done, you're-"  
"You don't get it!" She whispered as she wept and curled into herself. "I as good as killed them. Perhaps what I did was worse than killing them."  
He froze and considered her properly; she wasn't an idiot, and she wasn't a girl. She wasn't a monster either, but there was something... Off. "Who, Hermione? What did you do, and who to?"  
Whatever frozen shell she had wrapped around her shattered, and her voice ripped violently through the classroom. "My mum and dad." She near enough screamed. "I took their memories away!"  
Remus fell to his knees and wrapped his arms around her. "That doesn't make you a monster! You protected them, you-"

"They don't even know they have a daughter." She spat violently. "Eighteen bloody years, just wiped out." Lost in her memories, she barely noted Remus rubbing her arm reassuringly. "They had a trip to visit the National History Museum." She was whispering now, and he felt his heart break as he realised what the coldness in her eyes was. It was a wall of ice which she hid behind. "She was thirty-five, he was thirty-two. They... Well, they think they went there to 'see if anything had changed'." She sniffed. "I deemed that memory 'worthy', when I walked through their minds and judged everything. The cake afterwards? No, that couldn't stay." He made an inquisitive sound and she sighed, finally relaxing into him. "I wanted to go," She whispered, "so I begged and begged and begged, then when we arrived I saw the cafe. It was right next to the entrance, and there was this stunning looking coffee and walnut cake. We spent about ten minutes in the actual museum before I realised I knew it all, and I started pleading for a piece of that cake. I was seven."

He moved his gentle rubbing from her arms to her shoulders. "Did you get it?"  
"The cake?" He nodded, and she gave a loud, albeit short, burst of laughter. "Yup, I did. They always spoiled me." She gave a dry smile. "But I hated it. It was too sweet. Not enough coffee and not enough nuts." He gave a small, sad smile, and she continued, seeming as if she were in a trance. "He always made me a birthday cake." Her voice emotionless. "He couldn't bake at all, neither of them could. But they always made a cake for me. He'd try to bake and she'd try to decorate. When I was younger they'd give the cake to the other kids at primary school; to try to help me make friends, I guess. I was a fairly unsociable child, weird, they called me. They kept it up though, even when I came here." She gestured vaguely around her. "They send cake on my birthday every year." Swallowing thickly, she shook her head. "Sent." She let a hiss of self-hatred force itself through her teeth. "Harry was always grateful to have a piece, even when it was awful. How can I complain?"

Remus halted in his gentle massage, and glanced at her. "Sometimes," He began slowly, choosing his words with careful deliberation, "it's harder to have something and lose it, than to never have had it at all." She turned from where she had found herself, resting between his legs and near enough on his lap, to briefly frown at him in confusion. He didn't smile, didn't even attempt to look like things would be okay, which she was beyond grateful for, but still, his voice was soft and gentle. "Harry's never known what it is to have parents. Much as Sirius tried, much as I" he swallowed thickly, "tried to fulfil my promise to Lily and James, we could never be a parent to him. And Merlin knows that Petunia Dursley was never the, um, ideal mother figure." He shook his head as though shaking off an irritating bug. "Anyway, you can't compare your situation to Harry's. Much as I love him," He gave her a genuine, beautiful smile, "and I do love him, I don't think he could have done what you did."

She sniffed sadly, turning back to staring at the inferus. "He's not evil enough."  
"He's not brave enough." Remus corrected gently, as his hands moved from relaxing the tense muscles in her shoulders and neck to gently stroking her wild hair. "What you did..." He murmured, twining one tendril of flyaway curls around his finger and giving a small smile as it bounced with life. "No one will ever understand. They won't understand the loss, they won't understand the... The sacrifice, and they certainly won't understand the," he leant around her side and glared at her pointedly, "misplaced, self-loathing. But none of that means you're alone, and it certainly doesn't make you a monster. What you did makes you brave."  
She scoffed at that, and turned around once more. "What I did makes me heartless."  
"No." He whispered. "What you did makes you a Gryffindor."

At that she finally swivelled around properly met his eyes and, he was relieved to see, the chocolate orbs were warm once again, the icy chill of heartache being burnt away by the force of their combined lion's fire. "It sucks, sometimes." She murmured.  
He rested his forehead against hers, kissing it softly beforehand. "I know. Trust me, I know." He heaved a breath and made himself smile weakly. "But you can't ever compare yourself to Harry." His gaze turned serious as amber eyes bore into rusted charcoal. "Harry's parents... James and Lily, they're just dreams to him. They're imaginary people that he never really knew. They're..." He swallowed thickly. "They're dreams, that's all. And that's not fair. It's not." He spat the hatred out, before softening once more, and resting his cheek next to hers. "But he won't ever understand what you had to do. Remember, Hermione, it wasn't just them that lost eighteen years; it was you too. The only difference is, well, you remember." He felt her cool tears run down his face, or perhaps they were his own tears? "It's okay to grieve, it's right, it's healthy! But never compare yourself to Harry. It's not fair to torture yourself like that."  
She shrugged in an unconvincing sigh of nonchalance, and he casually brushed a strand of hair away from her eyes. "Harry's parents are just a dream to him." He repeated in a gentle whisper.

"An image in a mirror of desire." She muttered back, and gave a weary smile when he pulled back and tilted his head in confusion. "The Mirror of Erised, ever heard of it?"  
He nodded slowly, not taking his comforting hands away from smoothing through the dirt, blood and grit-filled hair that seemed even larger and bushier as the woman shrank. "It's a dark object. Incredibly dark. When I heard that Dumbledore had it here in your first year, that he knew Harry and Ron had looked in it, I..." He trailed away and she saw a furious flash of gold flicker across his eyes, as his mouth pursed furiously, and he suddenly looked uncannily like Professor McGonagall. But feral, much more feral. "I wasn't happy." His scowl dropped and he went back to the kind, curious, wonderful- albeit exhausted- man she knew so well. "Why do you ask?"  
She shrugged, and absently began running her hand up and down his arm as he returned his unbelievably relaxing hands to her neck and shoulders. "I guess... I don't know. I guess I've been wondering what I'd see." She whispered eventually. "I mean, I should know that I'd see us win, Voldemort defeated and all that. But... Sometimes I think I'd see me as a kid again, even if I was eating that coffee cake and hating it. With my parents." She gave a dark chuckle and leant into his neck as he rested his head on top of hers. "How selfish is that?"

She felt his long exhalation through the sagging of the body behind her and the way her hair fluttered in his breath. "It's not selfish." He whispered sadly, throat bobbing with barely-restrained tears. "Like I said, it's an incredibly dark object. Whatever's seen there, whatever could be seen there, even the thought of what might be there... It's poison."  
"Can't help but think about it though." She muttered lowly. "It's like a bloody mirror to your self-conscious."  
"It's not." He near enough growled, pulling her up quickly and resting his forehead against hers again. "It's a twisted, hateful, revolting thing, that can do as much bloody damage as a... A..."  
He seemed to be struggling for words, and she pushed a piece of his hair away from his cheek idly. "A horcrux?" She supplied.

"So that's what he did..." Remus muttered as he gazed into her knowing eyes.  
"We're sorting it." She whispered back. "Harry, Ron and I, we're sorting it."  
He leant even closer, brushing his nose against hers in a tender motion. "You shouldn't even know what either of those things are. You... You're just children." He breathed, his breath warming her cheek. "You shouldn't have to-"  
She pulled back, eyes full with tears as she shook her head. "None of us are children any more. I mean," She gave a snort, "they both frequently act like they're bloody seven, but... Well, nobody is. Not just the three of us, but every-bloody-body in this damn school. We've had no choice but to grow up."  
"It's not right."  
"What is nowadays?"  
He smiled sadly at her. "Good point."  
She didn't smile back, but kissed his cheek gently. "After all this is over and done with, and with the hope that we win, the students are going to need good teachers." She tilted her head slightly. "You're the best teacher I've ever had."

His blinked a few times, before a wry look overcame him. "It's why I came here, you know, to this classroom. I've always been happiest teaching. Whether it was James and Sirius or Harry and Ron and..." His cool expression gave way to one of doubt. "Do you really think I'm a good teacher? Werewolf and all?"  
She rubbed his arm soothingly. "I knew about your condition for more than half a year. It didn't bother me then, and it won't bother me now. In fact, it won't bother anyone with half a brain and-"  
She was cut off by his lips gently pressing against hers. It wasn't passionate, it wasn't sexual, but it was an intimate, soul-deep security that she felt throughout her whole being. It was as if some core part of her had reacted to his closeness and his kiss, and she smiled softly as she met his tender eyes. "Stay safe so that you can help them all, please?" She murmured, mouths still close.  
"I will if you will." He promised, nodding slowly.

"I never asked," She whispered against his lips, "what do you think you'd see? In that damned mirror?"  
He hummed for a moment, before grinning brilliantly, though sadly, at her. "I'd see myself holding my son during the full moon, with his mother next to me. I'd see-"  
She darted back, with any thoughts of fucking 'soul-mates' burned from her mind. Standing and turning to hide her burning eyes, she asked in a cold voice, "Did Tonks manage to find you?"  
If her voice had been icy, his was burning. "What did you say?"  
"Tonks; she was looking for you."  
She finally turned, and was alarmed at the fury in his expression. "What the fuck is Tonks doing here?!"


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N** So here's part two, hope no-one's too disappointed! I've got a biiig fic in the works at the moment so not sure when I'll be back again, but thanks to all you lovelies!  
Oh, and cookies to everyone who recognises the HP quote in here :)

 **Disclaimer** ; Everything recognisable is all JK Rowlings. Love her.

 **Chapter 2**

Hermione raised an eyebrow, even as Remus consciously tried to calm himself. "Breathe." She murmured soothingly after a moment, dropping to her knees and pulling him down with her, taking his hands in hers. "In, and out." Making her breaths deliberately extended, she encouraged him to follow her lead. "In, and out. Iiiinnnn, and ooouuuuuttttt."

Finally he relaxed, and rested his head against her shoulder in exhaustion. "Sorry." He muttered.  
"Don't be daft," She chided gently, taking him into her arms as he'd done a few minutes ago, "something's obviously happened." Pausing for a moment, she considered the pros and cons of her next question, and gnawed at her lip. Deciding that she needed to know, she wrapped her arms around his chest and rested her head on his shoulders, and softly whispered, "When is the next full moon?" Though she had expected him to explode again, he giggled like a small boy. "Remus?!" She barked in alarm.  
He turned and looked at her in genuine amusement. "Your breath." When the 'book-worm' looked more puzzled than he'd ever seen before, he clarified, with a gentle but poignant stroke of her cheek, and a warm smile. "Your breath tickled my ear. I'm disastrously ticklish, it's very embarrassing. Something the lads used to take advantage of frequently." He tilted his head. "Especially when they wanted me to do their homework."

Hermione chuckled lowly and deliberately in his ear, holding him tight as he tried to squirm away. "Professor Lupin," She mock-reprimanded, "what exactly are you-" He suddenly rolled them over, so she was under him, and with the mischievous glint of the eye that only one of the Marauders could have, began tickling her ruthlessly, chuckling as she squealed and laughed beneath him. "P-please!" She gasped after a few minutes. "Stop!" Both faces were flushed but filled with casual humour as he relented, still grinning with boyish charm at her. She, without even realising it, traced the most prominent scar on his face tenderly.

And then she sharply remembered Tonks, and dropped her hand, which made a loud thump as it hit the wooden floor. The echos of laughter that had momentarily washed away the death and misery that hung like shadows over them vanished, and she shuffled out from under him, leaning against a desk leg and wrapping her arms around her knees. "So," She began softly, "about To-"  
"We're getting divorced." He cut across swiftly. Her eyes widened and he held his hand out, waiting patiently until she slipped hers into it, and then rubbing his thumb across her knuckles soothingly. "Tonks and I never really worked," He began to explain, "I think I was just happy to have someone who accepted me, and she just wanted..."  
"You?" Hermione supplied, and was surprised when he shook his head in sadness.  
"Someone to save."

He spat the words, but whatever hatred was in that tone was nothing compared to the sudden, intense and potentially violent rage that burned in her eyes. "You. Do. Not. Need. Saving." She hissed, and watched Remus' reaction as he glanced up at her, eyes widening at her words and her fury. "Anyone who tells you need fucking saving is a fucking moron."  
He cleared his throat. "Well I can't deny that she has reason to-"

"Then you are a moron!" She screeched. "If you think you need saving then you are a... A bloody. Idiotic. Stupid. Fucking. Shit-minded. Crap-filled. Son-of-a-Death-Eater Moron." She punctuated each word with a shove against his chest, until he looked more than slightly alarmed, backed against the wall with her leaning over him. "You are one the strongest people I have ever met, and so help me Merlin, I won't even consider the idea that you need saving." Her chocolate eyes blazed like unforgiving meteors as she glared at him. "And anyone, anyone, who believes that... Well I will make them pay."

He blinked once. Then twice. Then thrice. After ten blinks he cleared his throat. "Erm, okay?" He asked quietly.  
She groaned, and stood up, walking wearily over to a desk, resting herself against it, and hiding her scowl.. "For God or Merlin or fucking Dumbledore's bloody hats sake, Remus…" She sighed heavily, before looking at him with tired eyes. "Are you like Fenrir Greyback?"  
He shot up, wrapping her cheeks in his palms as his eyes grew to the size of saucers and his face fell. "Of course I'm not!" He murmured, not sure why her opinion of him mattered so much. "I would never- never- do what he did!"  
She took on an expression that he recognised from when she had lectured Harry and Ron. "And what did he do?" She asked patiently.  
"He-he… Unspeakable things!" Remus blurted.  
"And would you ever-"  
"No!" He burst from her grasp and glared at her. "How could you think that I would ever be like that, that monster?"

Hermione merely leant back against the table and smirked. "So why exactly do you need saving?" His mouth gaping, he tried to form words, but they simply vanished. "Exactly." She said with finite certainty.  
Remus scowled, moving to lean against the desk beside her. "When the full moon comes, I'm…"  
She placed a hand on his shoulder. "I know."  
"You don't!" He insisted.  
She raised an eyebrow. "I've seen it, remember?"  
A shudder ran through his body, and his eyes burned as he gazed at her. "You called to me. Even when I was... _That_... I heard you." He didn't take his amber eyes from hers, but moved closer as he murmured, "It doesn't matter when the next full moon is."  
Hermione was frozen. Something within her called for her to close the narrow gap between them, but as she faced him, her peripheral vision caught on that damned inferus picture again and she lowered her eyes. "No, Remus." She murmured, taking his hand in hers and rubbing her thumb soothingly over his palm. "It doesn't matter when the next full moon is. What does matter is who you are, and who I am."  
He stroked her cheek gently. "And who are we?"

Sighing, and hating herself for what she must say, she replied in a cool voice. "We are two people in the middle of a war. You are a married man, I am a monster, and we both have places we need to be right now." When he opened his mouth to speak she shook her head. "You need to find your wife and find out if Teddy's okay. I need to find Harry and do," She sucked in a deep breath, "whatever it takes to win this war."  
"Hermione, you can't die." Remus sounded as if he were pleading, begging someone to make his statement true.

She gave a sad smile. "I may. Better me than you, anyway, Teddy doesn't deserve to be an-" Her last word was cut off as he pressed his lips against hers with more force than before, and with an almost desperate passion driving them, they were quickly against the wall once more, Remus between her legs, nipping playful bites up her neck. She tried to push him away, saying, "You're marri-ohhh," as her pushing had merely given him access to her chest, which he quickly began kissing enticingly. She felt her head swim, and almost gave into the ecstasy that would undoubtedly follow, but using the logic that had, more than once, denied her her desires, she scooted away, breathing heavily and gazing into her ex-Professor's eyes.

He looked hurt, so she glided over to him and kissed him softly. "I'm sorry," She murmured against his lips, "I really am. But… I have to find Harry. I have to help him." Raising her chocolate orbs, now swimming with tears, to meet his, she saw the warm understanding that she adored.  
"Of course." He said, pressing a chaste kiss on her mouth, before a dark look overcame him. "I just wish I could help."  
Hermione kissed every scar on his face; from the tiny one over his eyebrow from Padfoot's accidental bite, to the large one from Greyback that stretched across his cheek, she kissed every one. "Stay safe." She whispered. "I don't know what it is about you Remus… But just stay safe, that's the best way you can help."

He gave a grim smile. "I don't know what it is about you either. It's just… Something within me seems to need you, and that is so wrong!"  
"Why is it?" She breathed, not quite touching his mouth, but oh so close.  
"You're young-"  
"As if you're not, magically speaking."  
"You're beautiful-"  
"Not looking so bad yourself, not bad at all."  
"You've got your whole life ahead of you-"  
"Possibly not, considering I'll likely die in the next-"

He grasped her face in his hands, eyes wild. "You. Will. Not. Die."  
She leant forwards and kissed him softly. "If I don't, you'd better not either."  
He scowled, before giving that boyish grin. "I suppose I can agree to those terms."  
She gave him a playful push. "Good, 'cause otherwise I'd have to haunt you forever."

Remus chuckled, draping an arm around her shoulders casually, and for a few moments, deciding that they could act like love-sick people, rather than soldiers fighting a war. "Hey, I don't think I ever thanked you for saving Sirius, so, well, thank you."  
She shrugged and blushed, biting her lip. "I kinda cost you your job in the process."  
He scowled. "No, that was Severus's doing."  
She shuffled closer, so she was resting more comfortably against his side. "Do you think he's bad?"  
He considered her question carefully; he'd guessed fairly early on that bad things had happened to Severus Snape, but did that excuse the bad things he'd done? And did his rare actions of kindness excuse the terror he'd caused? "I think," He began slowly, "he is a very unhappy person. He's done evil things, good things, worked on the side of light and dark and, well… But I guess no, I don't think he's a bad person."  
She nodded against his chest. "Me neither."

A sudden bang interrupted them, and though they had been there for what seemed like a lifetime, when Hermione waved her wand, she realised it had been less than twenty minutes. Still, when ten minutes, or even one minute, meant a life, she realised she'd dallied for too long. "I have to go!" She jumped up and began racing to the door, but Remus grabbed her arm quickly.  
"I don't want you to get hurt!"  
She gazed into his concerned eyes and felt herself falling even deeper. "Remus… When this is all over, I really want to know what this is." She gave him a swift kiss. "But I have to help Harry, you know that." He sighed and nodded, watching her sprint away. However, when she reached the door she turned, and giving a somewhat confused smile, said, "I think I love you, Remus Lupin."

He watched her begin to leave and, before following her back into the battle, murmured, "I know I love you. Werewolf mate or not, I love you Hermione Granger." He gazed pointedly at her. "It wouldn't be Tonks's child I saw myself with in the Mirror of Erised."  
She smiled, before smirking cheekily. "And hey, if you ever worry about that whole full moon thing, just think of how some women are once a month. Now _there_ are some monsters."  
He simultaneously paled and blushed scarlet, muttering under his breath as Hermione laughed at his typically male reaction to the idea of periods. "Get out of here." He said eventually, scowling slightly, but with the hint of a smile playing at his lips. "I'll see you later?"  
"Stay safe Remus."  
"You too."

She wished her eyes had been burned out and rendered her blind. Screw the pain, screw the freaking flowers, screw every bloody-mother-fucking sun-fucking-set. If having hot pokers in her eyes would erase the image she was now seeing, she would happily take it. He was dead. As she walked into the Great Hall, she saw the Weasleys crowded together, other friends and family members crowding the dead, she merely stood there. Alone. Staring at the corpse that had been placed hand in hand with his wife, she choked.

Walking slowly over, ignoring Ron, ignoring Harry, she fell to her knees beside him, and gently removed his hand from Tonks so that she could hold it in her own, as she pressed one last, gentle kiss against his lips.

"Harry, why were my mum and dad buried apart?" Teddy Lupin asked curiously.  
His Godfather- well, God _dad_ really- quickly deflected the question. "Hermione?"  
When the young boy looked up to the woman who had been a mother to him, Hermione smiled at him. "Well, your dad was part of this amazing group called the Marauders, and we thought they should stay together!" Translation; she had fought tooth and nail for Remus to be laid to rest here.  
"What about my mum?"  
She plastered a smile on her face. "She's with everyone else who needed to be saved, Teddy."  
"But why isn't my dad there?"

She knelt in front of Remus's grave, which was situated in Godric's Hollow next to James and Lily's, and the memorial Harry had made for Sirius. Looking wistfully at the otter and wolf carvings she had placed on the headstone, she smiled. "Someone saved him, before he left. Told him that there was nothing wrong with him, told him that he was amazing. Told him that he was loved." Teddy fell to his knees beside her and started crying silently. She wrapped an arm around him, a sole tear falling from her eyes as she murmured, "You're dad was saved before he died."  
Teddy looked at her with moisture in his eyes. "What do you mean?" He choked out.  
She gave a grim smile. "There was one thing we all needed, that none of us seemed to have, in those last moments." He made an enquiring sound and she hugged him fully. "Hope, Teddy, hope. And in the end, your dad had hope."

He buried his head in her chest and they remained there for a few more moments, before, clearing her throat, she stood and turned to her best friend, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. Harry smiled and rested his hand over hers in a mute sign of solidarity, before he suddenly grinned at the young, crestfallen boy. "Hey, Teddy, did I ever tell you about your dad's love of chocolate? He would always have secret stashes of it everywhere, and…"

Letting Harry's voice fade away as the trio left the graveyard, she looked back one final time and let one bead of moisture work its way down her chilled cheeks, before turning back to the other two and grinning. "You know what this means of course… Chocolate ice-cream!" The young boy gave a half-hearted cheer, still clearly upset, and she squatted down to his level, looking into eyes that were the spitting image of Remus's. "He had love too Teddy. So much love." Looking at the boy who, even with his metamophmagus abilities, had traits of his father in the colour of those caramel orbs, the gentle curve of his mouth, and the long, studious fingers that now rested in her palms, she made a promise to herself. _I'll look after him Remus. I swear. And we'll find each other again; somehow, someway, we'll find each other again._

Unbidden by her magic, her patronus suddenly burst into life, no longer an otter but a large wolf with beautiful markings and deep, knowing eyes. It circled around the three of them as they gaped at it, before giving Teddy a ghostly lick on the cheek, and resting its snout against Hermione's neck. "I love you Moony." She breathed, and the wolf gave a small, gentle yip before seeming to be sucked into her chest. Suddenly she knew what to say. "The ones who love us never really leave us, you can always find them in here." She placed a hand over his heart, and for the first time that day- his birthday- he genuinely smiled.

"So… What's this about chocolate ice-cream?


End file.
